January 27, 2011
The applicant in Haas v. Switzerland was a 57 years old male who suffered from a bipolar disorder since nearly 20 years. Wishing to commit suicide, Mr. Haas attempted to obtain a lethal substance (sodium pentobarbital) that was only available on medical prescription. To that end, he contacted several psychiatrists, but was not able to […]
January 25, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. More information on Rónán can be found on the website of the Center for Journalism Studies of Ghent University, here. Amid all the discussion regarding the A., B. and C. v. Ireland judgment, it is interesting […]
January 20, 2011
2010 was a turbulent year for the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has been under fire both for usurping too much power and for achieving too little. The first type of critique is made by conservatives who recycle the old idea that an international court has no legitimacy to judge the situation on […]
January 17, 2011
When is the duty to investigate possible racist motives triggered in cases of ill-treatment and death in police custody? In one of the latest 2010 judgments (Mižigárová v. Slovakia) dealing with police brutality against a member of an ethnic minority, the Court did not consider that “the authorities had before them information that was sufficient […]
January 13, 2011
In the end of last year the Court delivered a judgment in the case of Ternovszky v. Hungary. In this judgment the Court created a new right – the right to choose the circumstances of becoming a parent. I will not focus on the discussion about the safety of the mother and the child that […]
January 10, 2011
On February 3 and 4, you can meet us in Strasbourg where we organize the conference: “Mainstreaming Diversity: Rewriting Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights” The conference wants to suggest ways in which the European Court of Human Rights might improve its mainstreaming of diversity concerns. The conference is organized in six panels, respectively […]
January 06, 2011
Before its holiday break, the European Court of Human Rights released two judgments in defamation cases, Novaya Gazeta V Voronezhe v. Russia and Sofranschi v. Moldova. Both cases concern allegations of abuse and irregularities. While both judgments contain good elements, in my opinion they also reveal faulty reasoning on the part of the Court. Most interestingly, […]
January 04, 2011
In the most recent round of judgments, squeezed in just before the festive season, are two interesting cases concerning the detention of persons with a disability: Jasinskis v. Latvia and Raffray Taddei v. France. These two cases are exemplary of many others, in which people with a disability are held in detention in appalling conditions. […]
December 22, 2010
This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. In P.V. v. Spain (no. 35159/09), the European Court of Human Rights Court had to rule over an application by a male-to-female transsexual with regard to restrictions imposed on the contact arrangements with her son. Invoking Article 8 […]
December 17, 2010
A., B. and C. v. Ireland concerned three Irish applicants who, in their first trimester of pregnancy, had travelled to England to have an abortion because they believed they would not be allowed to have one in Ireland. The Irish Constitution, unlike the European Convention on Human Rights, explicitly extends the right to life to […]
December 08, 2010
By Saïla Ouald-Chaib and Lourdes Peroni In a previous post, I said I would give the European Court of Human Rights a standing ovation the day it adopted a more open stance in freedom of religion cases. The time has come for such ovation. And the opportunity has been provided by what may well be […]
December 06, 2010
This guest post has been written by Katayoun Alidadi who is a PhD Candidate at the KULeuven (Institute for Migration Law & Legal Anthropology) and a project researcher in the European FP7 Project Religare on ‘Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe’ (www.religareproject.eu) Recently, a Belgian judge in the small Walloon city of Huy (between […]
December 01, 2010
This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. Traffic noise pollution – especially at night – is one of the biggest health risks of contemporary Europe. This kind of pollution causes inter alia sleep disturbance, cardiovascular diseases, aberrant social behavior and stress. Guidelines from the […]
November 26, 2010
In what some have considered a “blunt ultimatum”, the Court has just given the United Kingdom a six-month deadline to introduce legislative proposals to amend its laws banning prisoners from voting. At the basis of the Court’s decision, is the government’s 5-year failure to execute the Grand Chamber judgment in Hirst (No. 2), the case […]
November 22, 2010
This guest post on freedom of expression, academic research, privacy protection and access to official documents has been written by Professor Dirk Voorhoof. Professor Voorhoof is affiliated to both Ghent University (Belgium) and Copenhagen University (Denmark). He is also a Member of the Flemish Regulator for the Media. Further information on Professor Voorhoof can be […]
November 16, 2010
Shakespeare suggested that the names of things do not matter, but only their substance. The applicants in Losonci Rose and Rose v. Switzerland disagree. So does the Court, and so do I. The applicants in this case are a couple who wanted to retain their own names after marriage, rather than adopt a double-barreled surname […]
November 12, 2010
Some of us were expecting with great interest the Court’s judgment in Ali v. Romania, particularly its decision concerning the alleged violation of freedom of religion. The applicant, a Muslim serving a sentence in Rahova Prison, complained that the prayer room had been closed. The judgment came out this week. The Court’s decision on Article […]
November 10, 2010
The first post I wrote for our blog was titled: “Is a more inclusive wind blowing through the Court?”. In this post I discussed the case of Muñoz Díaz v. Spain that came out atthe end of 2009, about the non-entitlement to a widow pension by a women who was married for 29 years, but […]
November 04, 2010
This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. On 21 October the European Court of Human Rights delivered the judgment Saliyev v. Russia. The case concerned an article in a municipal newspaper about the acquisition of shares in a local energy producing company – at that […]
November 01, 2010
Does a right to reputation exist under the European Convention on Human Rights? And when does such a right exist? Keeping Pfeifer v. Austria (15 Nov. 2007) in mind, those may appear to be redundant questions. But they are not. I will discuss these questions in light of the recent judgment of the European Court […]